Building a Home

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Three Kitty Konstruction
La Honda, CA

Latest revision, December, 2003

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  Planning Phase

  Building Phase

  Finishing Up

Hi there.

(For more about Blackie, click on her picture.) We're going to have to stop meeting like this. The people and the other kitties will start to talk.

If you arrived here by way of our Three Kitty Konstruction page, you know all about the Three Kitty Kompany and its mythical subsidiaries. If not, please click here

. If you want to go to the Kompany Home Page, please click here.

So, now Jack and Jan have bought a piece of land that they were getting to know. They have various surveys and thought they were beginning to understand the regulatory and permit processes. Before they cut down too much of the Manzanita, Huckleberry, Chinquapin and Rhododendron to clear a place for their house, they needed a house plan and an architect to design it. Here, they turned, once again, to their trusty realtor. He recommended a local architect named Dan. Jack and Jan met him and saw some of his work. They felt comfortable working with him as he and Jack finished each other's jokes.

As with every big project, there was some homework for Jack and Jan to do. Dan asked my foster-parents to write a "program" which is a summary of who they are and how they live. There was also a multipage "lifestyle survey" for Jan and Jack to complete. Frosty, just before she left for the Heavyside Layer, narrated the "program" as a webpage-style description of the Three Kitty Kompany, all its subsidiaries, and all the needs, wants and desires for each retirement activity. To see an index from the Program, please click here.

Jack and Jan requested a house (for the people and the kitties), a barn (for Three Kitty Rail) and a garage (for their cars and for storing their "stuff" in Three Kitty Konsolidated). They wanted a couple of spare bedrooms (for friends and relatives visiting Jan's Travel-Rama), a study to be shared by Three Kitty Photo and Three Kitty Komputing, a loft for Three Kitty Kreations and a screened porch (so Wookie and Yoda can think they are outside when they are really indoors - not too bright those two).

Dan arranged for a crew of people to begin clearing the brush from the house site. Initially about 3 days of work was done (by hand - no noisy bulldozers that tear up the soil) to clear enough so that a topographical survey could be done. Jack and Jan were in Gualala for the Great Brush Clearing. (We kitties get to stay with a kitty-sitter or go to "summer camp" because we don't like being in the car for the 4 hour trip to Gualala.) Because the clearing was done at the end of the dry season, the brush was piled up to be burned later. (Personally, I think that they should leave one or two of the brush piles. They sound like fun places to play - with lots of live "smart toys" to play with.) Although we kitties don't count very well (We only have 18 toes.), I think there were about 15 piles of brush each 20 feet in diameter and 15 feet tall.

Every few weeks, Jack and Jan journeyed up to Gualala to meet with Dan and review progress on the house plans. They found that it was quite effective to travel to Gualala early in the morning, meet with Dan in the afternoon, review Dan's work privately for the evening and meet with Dan again in the morning before travelling back to La Honda. From this, they have written a chronology of events.

Because this is a very long project, the chronology will be divided into three phases. Please click the links below to watch the progress.

Planning Phase:
July, 2000 - Feb., 2002

Building Phase:
Mar., 2002 - Oct., 2003

Finishing Up:
October, 2003 -

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